


Notes From The Underground

by HelenaKey



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Antisocial Behaviour, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Canon Divergence - Thor: The Dark World, Depression, Developing Friendships, Gen, Hypochondriac Character, Isolation, Misconceptions About Reality, Not Iron Man 3 Compliant, POV First Person, Paranoia, Platonic Male/Male Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-30 12:29:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5163899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelenaKey/pseuds/HelenaKey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki doesn't know what happened to the Avengers after Ultron rebelled against them. He doesn't know that the Heroes' Headquarters and everyone living in them are in a great danger. He doesn't know that the fate of the Earth might hang in the balance. But when Tony Stark, the most prideful and stubborn of all the Avengers turns to him for advice, he doesn't really mind the reasons behind his request.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Notes From The Underground

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this one was hard to writte. I put... a lot of myself in this story, if I'm honest. At the beginning, I wasn't enterily sure whether to post it or not. Loki is a character with whom I identify a lot (uh, what does that say about me?) so when I writte about him I tend to reflect. A lot. So, I'm sorry if this comes across as a little OCC. I did as best as I could, hahaha. Anyway, hope you enjoy the story, and if you do, please leave feedback ;)

I believe I suffer from a severe illness.

I know nothing at all about my disease, and I do not know for certain what ails me. There is, however, a revolting feeling that day and night clings to my stomach and stirs my insides. An ever present sensation of nausea that (no matter how much I squeeze behind my palate, right above the uvula) never escapes my systems as viscous, yellow bile. When eating, it ties a knot around my gorge that doesn't let me swallow, and at times would not let me take but a few gulps of water. It strains my muscles in a clingy, sweaty substance that in days of soreness doesn't allow me to get out of the messy tangle of my bed sheets.

I haven't told anyone about my ailment (never have, never would) even when my current condition is, indeed, starting to worry me. I am extremely suspicious, you see; sufficiently so that I'd rather die slowly at the quivering hands of malady, than recklessly disclose a state of weakness that might very well allow someone to kill me. More suspicious on my part, I refuse to seek my jailors for help out of spite.

That, you probably would not understand. I understand it well enough, thought.

Of course, I can't explain why is it precisely that I am mortifying myself so much out of mere spite. I am perfectly well aware that neither Thor, nor any of his fellow Avengers, would inflict harm upon me, given my current state. I am, all things considered, their prisoner: and it would be unworthy of them to kill a man who, in the strictest sense of law, has surrendered to them. Certainly, it would be unworthy of me. I know better than anyone else that by this unwillingness to ask for help I am only injuring myself. But again, if I don't tell anyone about it, it is out of spite.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, when Thor takes me out of my cell and frees me from my restrains, my ailment subsides. The heavy presence that overcomes my being (polluting the very air I breathe, clutching at my chest as a crushing feeling of vacuum) whenever I lie alone, unheard and forgotten in the cold, metal floor of my room, vanishes. The steamy air of New York City, compared to the dense scent of my containing rooms, tastes like a summer breeze.

He doesn't take me out to breathe fresh air, thought. No.

He takes me to the Post Office; a discrete Blind Spot in the center of the city that ever since SHIELD's collapse became the Avenger's Official Headquarters. I don't get to stretch my legs and relieve my cramps on the green vastness of an open space - to get lost in the shell of thin, transparent glass of the summer sky, nor in the shifting shades of the sun reflected on a river of flat-waters. I only sit on the worktable of the _Beast's_ laboratory, explaining the workings of ancient artifacts, or correcting gullible formulas. 

For that, I am grateful, as dull as it may sound.

For in these rather hard times (where Thor is the one who brings food and drink to my cell; the one who keeps me company in my hours of boredom and entertains me whenever I feel jaded, and the one who every now and then, when both his guard and mine are down, shows me affection) I feel less like Thor's brother, and more like Thor's pet. The picture of him, above all these things, taking me out for a walk in the park, turns my stomach in an unpleasant way.

I have been living like this for a long time now (five years, if I remember correctly); been pulled by the thin strands of a life of servitude. For I  _am_  a servant, even when my owners are afraid to say that particular word aloud. Relatively recently, you see, the Avengers realized that however questionable it was, they had on their hands a valuable source of information that, in such a dry and ignorant realm as this one, could not be dismissed. And as they couldn't just take my head off to loot the wonders contained within, they decided I was more valuable as a consultant than as a dark, forgotten prisoner. The two are not mutually exclusive, although.

I  _am_ a spiteful servant, as you may guess. I am crude, and violent and almost painfully honest, and I take pleasure in being so. I haven't lied to them yet, however, so I am bound to find a recompense for that (or at least, I hope so). When they come for information to the table at which I sit (chained, and always under the attentive gaze of the _Beast),_ I grind my teeth at them, and feel immense enjoyment when I succeed in making any of them unhappy. I normally succeed. For the most part they are all silent creatures, and is in very rare occasions that they answer back. But out of the uppish ones there is one Avenger in particular I cannot endure. 

As proof of the agitated (if not overly dramatic) way our first meeting ended, my relationship with this particular man has evolved into the most bizarre feud in which I have ever participated. For Anthony Stark, as I have discovered, with the passage of time, simply cannot be humble when he finds himself in a meeting of minds (or as he normally prefers to call it, a  _game of bickering_ ).

Contrary to his brothers-in-arms, the Man of Iron doesn't become uneasy in my presence, nor does he hide his resentment towards me behind a plainly blank expression. He just walks into the room with a smile from ear to ear, rambling about nonsense, poking at electronic devices, and ultimately ignoring every single thing that it's not somehow related to himself. Except, of course, in those more than few occasions in which he feels the need of making fun of someone just for the sake of it. Suffice it to say that, since his entire team has developed the natural ability to block his voice when he's not saying something of importance, that  _someone_  is usually me.

While the _Beast_ usually seeks me out for information (normally concerning ancient relics and energy sources) and, every now and then, for advices about sorcery, Stark always comes to me for petty matters, if not, for a wanton talk. Probably because he's too proud to ask for help when it comes to engineering, especially if it concerns the Iron Man's suits. I recall, in fact, that once we carried a long and tedious cample for over two hours over why my armor's helmet was solely ridiculous, and I should never wear it again if I wanted to maintain a respectable reputation. At the last moment he won the argument, even thought I didn't, in fact, have a reputation to maintain. And now that the helmet rests, rusted and full of dust, in a nearby storehouse (never to be used again in battle) and the honor in ancient traditions no longer seems important, I can understand why.

 

* * *

 

Besides Anthony, the other Avengers that I happen to know personally, (for I am aware that there are many more, that although are never seen in the Post Office, do not hesitate in joining the team in battle) are scarcely five and, as expected, are always the most suspicious when it comes to ask for my advice. Luckily, most of them (such as Rogers, Romanov and Barton) usually devote their efforts to reconnaissance missions or tracking of Intel, so I do not worry about them in my day to day. Thor, as I have said already, is merely a jailor, and he doesn't interfere in human affairs unless it's absolutely necessary; hence, when I am at the Post Office, I rarely see him. That usually leaves me and the _Beast_ alone in my hours of servitude, thus I work only and exclusively with his projects.

He is not a very talkative creature, and his presence is so quiet and soundless that I tend to forget he's even there; when he refers to me or requires my help, he never looks at me straight in the eyes. He takes painkillers, I know, as well as antidepressants, and once a day practices breathing exercises. Someone, right now I can't remember who, told me that once he tried to take his own life.

The _Beast,_ you see, is a creature of fickle nature, and out of self-preservation instincts, I maintain my contact with him to a minimum. If someone should ask me why, I'll probably say that is a mere precaution, but since I've already decided that I'll be honest with you (at last as honest as I can manage to be) I shall confess that I do it out of fear. Not fear for the human, certainly, for he is defenseless on his own, but for the green, pulsating mass of muscle that lies beneath the skin.

Regardless of my feelings towards him or towards his temper tantrums, I could say that I know the _Beast's_ nature well enough; sufficiently to discern between his mood changes, and whether or not he's acting like himself. For I have spent the last five years trying to find out how much one can push without actually making him angry, I know when his temper is getting on edge. That is why, the day the _Beast_ began to arrive at the laboratory nervous, wary and almost desperately eager to finish his job, the change of attitude did not pass me unnoticed.

For some time now, whenever I arrive to the Post Office, the human (disheveled, unshaven and wearing garments of the previous day) has his head stuck between the engines of high caliber weapons. He stays day and night in front of his desk (not minding the fall of the night or the rise of the sun) working as if there were no tomorrow for him. The construction of weaponry, that had previously been part of long-term projects, considered merely a precaution, has become a priority in his schedule, as well as the plans (“all hypothetical”) for civil pacification.

He looks weary, tired and worried, and certainly, is not the only one in his team that does.

Whereas before I could spend weeks without seeing Rogers, Barton and Romanov at the Headquarters, now it can pass months without any of them giving sings of life. When they deign to do so, they are always covered in yesterday bruises and still gushing wounds, warning at anyone who could dare touch them to stay away with a hoarse, pained groan. A familiar (but never pleasant) reminder of those days of old, when Thor and his comrades would come back to Asgard from their foolish adventures, proudly wearing battle scars, and hiding small frowns of pain behind jaded smiles. Same as then, I don't dignified them with a look or with the smallest hint of worry. I mimic the always silent, tight-lipped servants of the Valaskjál Palace, and I limit myself to do the job with which I was entrusted.

An unknown danger threatens the Avenger's House, I can say that much; and I (as any decent opportunist would) was convinced not to get in its way. I pretended not to mind the sudden change of environment, or the nervous, restless faces that I encountered in my way whenever Thor took me out of my cell. I just kept working, resolute not to find out (not even by accident) the answers to any of the thousands of questions that were hungrily stirring inside my head.

 

* * *

 

Indifference worked fairly fine, if only for a while. The Avengers, in their never ending wisdom, wouldn’t trust me the cause of this passive-aggressive feeling that was looming over their facility. And given I was not worthy enough to know about such peril, I was also taken out of their immediate plans to fight it. They cast me aside for the moment; the _Beast_ started to ignore me in favor of his midgardian technology, and the rest of his team kept going out in their respective missions. Thor would continue to bring me to the Headquarters once in a while, and every time I would sit at my table (in that small, white laboratory that I have come to know so well) with not a single piece of work at hand.

My disease, promptly so, became an ever present tingle in the back of my head; a pained twist forever lurking in my systems. As days went by in the Post Office (while I sat idly, always chained at the worktable, and with no possibility to go anywhere else) my waking hours seemed disgustingly unproductive; the vacuum in my full extent of free time melting me in a heated mental dullness.  My time in the cell and my time in the laboratory became, at some level, the same thing; my only connection with the world beyond the reinforced glass turning into another sad extent of my containing rooms.

Anger took the best of me (as so many times has done it in the past) for I couldn't get rid of that acrid patch of frustration that, with every lost day, grew hungrily in my chest. I found the crushing feeling leaning over me like a tidal wave, growing, writhing and bleeding all over me, leaving me a motionless figure, deedless and gasping for breath in the shoreline. My life has been going downhill in recent years, I am aware, but in those unending three weeks (been swallowed by boredom, sleeplessness and absent grieving) I can honestly say that I hit rock bottom.

One night, finally, poor Thor became the ventilation for such dark feelings (as I had been to him, indeed, in his least heroic moments) when for no apparent reason I threw my tray of food over his impetuous blonde locks.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do that night when he first entered my cell to bring me dinner; therefore I didn't feel the smallest hint of guilt for it. And by it, I sought nothing but to anger him; for I myself was angry and bored, and make people feel the same way is, you see, one of the few pleasures that in my state of prisoner I can afford.  And I do not mind suffering a reasonable amount of pain for the sake of it. The fist directed at my face and the throbbing, purple bruise in my right cheek were not, certainly, a surprise for me.

 

* * *

 

Reached this point in my monologue, you may find it fit to ask me who am I. Considering I've been to bore you with this incessant babble for such a long time, I think you deserve an answer.

I am… a war prisoner, one might say; and until fairly recently, I was considered the most dangerous criminal who was ever contained in Asgard's prisons. Not because of my physical strength, I know well, or for my mental abilities (even though sometimes I try to convince myself otherwise) but because of my knowledge, extensive and well detailed, of the regent monarchy. Its strengths and weakness, its strategies in the battlefield, its blind spots, and the list shall go on.

For precautionary measures, I was sentenced to solitary confinement. For I was not only a great danger to my guards, to my fellow prisoners, and to myself even: I was a traitor to the crown. One that held extremely valuable information in his wretched little head. A major threat to the realms if I ever got to escape. It was actually ironic, given the circumstances, that someone who swore, (not one but hundreds of times) to protect them, was the one who willingly set me free.

The concept of  _freedom_ (you'll probably know) was and is still an abstract concept to me. For I was only subjected to a different kind of incarceration (this time under the watchful gaze of Thor's brothers-in-arms) and yet I have the audacity to say that I was actually  _set free._ I have found, however, peace of mind in my incarceration (peace in leaving those in the higher scales of hierarchy the heavy burden of deciding my fate) and that alone is the closest thing to liberty that I could ever afford.

Shortly after the breakout, and all the events that followed it, Thor found out as well that the common definition of freedom in some instances falls short. He had committed treason in the eyes of his realm (in the eyes of a kingdom that he had been destined to rule) and even when the final verdict was the milder that, given the circumstances, could be achieved, he might as well had been thrown headlong into the dungeons.

Life in exile, unexpected as it was, resulted extremely difficult for him; even when he had a place to stay, and friends who could aid him, with SHIELD's imminent collapse and Asgard's prisons out of reach, Thor just didn't know what to do with me (I didn't know what to do with myself either). But as always, his ever good judgment would not allow him to let me walk free out of the matter. The rest should be easy to figure out.

Ever since I have become his prisoner (a heavy burden in the best moments, and in times of need, a valuable consultant). My room came to be a wretched, horrid cell settled down in Jane Foster's basement; my only company (besides the one of my jailor) a young peasant lady, natured from stupidity, that from time to time is obliged to clean the chambers.

I became a lonely man, you see.

A sick, embittered man.

You might imagine, no doubt, that this long manuscript is intended to placate my loneliness; this inborn weariness that has overtaken my being ever since I was imprisoned. In that, you are mistaken, for I wish only to amuse myself. And what could entertain more a man such as me, than speak about himself?

I shall, then, speak to you about myself!

 

* * *

 

The day Anthony Stark appeared to get me out of my stupor, I was in the _Beast'_ s laboratory, as usual, absently looking at the white ceiling.

He arrived loudly, as he usually does, calling the  _Beast's_ name while he walked down the stairs two steps at a time. When he entered through the glass doors he surveyed the room, as if looking for something or someone. His brown eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. When he realized his teammate was not in the vicinity, he pursed his lips in distaste. He turned to look at me almost brusquely, with a fake, cocky smile plastered on his face.

“Hey,  _Sourpatch!_ Any idea where Bruce is?” He asked, strolling towards the table where I sat. I leaned back in my chair, trying to dissipate the somnolence that had overcome me in the last few hours; I still maintain a fervent feud with the man, and I couldn't let him catch me unprepared.

“He departed long ago. Said he needed to review some readings in the basement detectors,” was my answer. He hummed absently, as if considering what to do; then he looked me up and down, before waving a dismissive hand and pulling out a chair.

“It doesn't matter, you'll serve.” He told me, sounding just a little annoyed while he pulled out a pair of blueprints for me to examine. It took me some time to realize that he was (in the best way someone as Anthony could manage) asking for my conceal. It was something extremely strange (In fact, it had never happened before) but curious of what his inquiring might be about, I didn't comment on it.

While he had not reported to the Headquarters over recent weeks, with a single glance it became obvious that he had wasted himself into work as passionately (or even more so) than the rest of his team. He looked tired when he sat in the chair opposite mine that day, right across the worktable. Trembling hands and long shiners around his eyes made me aware of his sleep deprivation. That weariness he tried to hide, of course, behind a lively attitude and haughty smiles; his vivid concentration and the sharp glim of awareness in his eyes were only granted by the big cup of coffee that rested in his side of the table.

I absently wondered what kind of project would be difficult enough to put that stressful look on his face (the face of a man who, not unlike me, possess no self-preservation instincts when it comes to finish his work) and, at the same time, be so weighty that, even facing the complication of it, Anthony would wait so long to address it to me. For the Avengers, even those who know better than to trust me, are not nearly as suspicious as they were in my first years of imprisonment, and are actually willing to ask for my help in difficult affairs, regardless if they do it in a plainly unkind manner.

“Let's say I have a mission.” He said, after a moment of hesitation. “A very secret mission, that has to be…  _discreet._ I need the thrusters of my suit to be silent, so I don't get caught. You have anything in this… eh, lab of yours, that could help with that?”

The question took me aback at the beginning, for it seemed an extremely petty matter having in count the artifacts Anthony is known to assemble. Then I looked at the blueprints; how the thrusters, located in the boot soles and in the palms of every machine, were the only thing keeping Stark in the air whenever he took off. It was, indeed, a noisy technology, given the force the thrusters needed to carry an average human's weight. As far as I knew the _Beast_  didn’t have anything that could help with that, but it occurred to me, after thinking it over a couple of times, that depending on how heavy Anthony and the machine were, that force could be decreased.

“How much does this machine of yours weight?” I asked him, and again, he seemed reluctant to answer. He drummed his fingers against the table, and it took him severe moments to respond.

“I'm not sure. One hundred thirty pounds, maybe more.” I stared at him for a long moment, silently doing the math (for I was not yet familiarized with the midgardian systems of measurement). He was not a very tall man, and I figured he wouldn't weight too much.

“You could always decrease the thruster’s propulsion in order to reduce its sound. I should warn you, nonetheless, that if you force them too much they would send you down in a particularly unpleasant landing…” I trailed off then; that was nothing that Anthony could not have figured out by himself, specially having in count how much effort he was putting in this project. He, in fact, looked disappointed with my answer.

“Yeah, yeah, I thought in that too. It's not good.” He said in an annoyed voice, rubbing at his eyes. “It only reduces the sound; I need them to be completely silent.” He leaned roughly back in his chair, and took a long sip of his coffee.

I narrowed my eyes at him, and silently considered my response. “What, exactly, do you have to do in this mission?” I asked after a moment, playing with the blue pen that the _Beast_  had left on the worktable. In another time they would have roughly taken it out of my hands, sure that I planned to get it through someone's throat. Small mercies of life…

He went strangely silent then, and answered flatly. “That's not relevant, is it?”

He was trying to approach the subject, I realized, without giving anything of importance away. At the time, I pay it no attention. At the moment my curiosity, as well as my thirst for knowledge, had went dry, and everything he was telling me (and everything he was not) I did not care about. If he got himself killed because he had omitted an important detail, it would certainly not be my fault. So I limited myself to lean back in my chair, look at him straight in the eyes, and answer his questions.

“You could decrease the speed instead of the thrusters force, but it would make your machines become extremely slow.”

“Not good either. I need to finish the mission in record time.”

The answer to that was simple: “You could reassemble your suits to make them lighter; it would lessen the thrusters force and they would become faster.” I stayed silent for a moment, reconsidering my words. “But you would have to change its weight depending on the climate or the surroundings.”

My patience began to wear thin when Anthony asked me how he could do that; he kept putting new conditions with every single one of my arguments, and I was running out of answers. I was sure that Anthony would not be fond of the idea of charging and discharging stones on his machines depending on the situation. He stubbornly went back to his first question, and we kept arguing until we reached an impasse. I finally concluded that there was a solution, but that neither he nor any other midgardian engineer would understand it.

“What is that supposed to mean?!” He practically yelled at me, looking clearly offended by my assumptions.

I have learned (after years of scathing  _bickering_ with the man) that nothing angers him more than someone doubting of his intellect (and given all he has achieved in his field in such a short life span, he's probably right in doing so). He's not a short minded person, I am well aware, even when his incessant ramble can make him sound like a three inch fool sometimes. It dawned on me, like many times in the past, that as much as he seemed to be, this was not an ordinary human, and his mind, certainly, was not an average one. The cold, glowing energy source placed right in the middle of his chest was a proof of it.

 _An Antigravity Generator would serve your purposes_ , I thought, but I did not say such thing out loud.

Many would have consider it perverted, I knew; show that particular type of technology to a simple man of Midgard, and even Thor (always so fond of their race), has forbidden me to reveal them certain secrets. I have, however, underestimated them in the past, and I am keenly decided not to do it again. For I knew, looking at those angry, resolute brown eyes, slightly illuminated by the Arc Reactor's blue light, that if anyone in this realm deserved to have this technology at hand, it would certainly be Anthony Stark.

 


End file.
